1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improvement in web browser technology, and more particularly to a method for providing a user a visual display indicating the sequence in which hyperlinked materials were selected in a displayed page.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Users navigating across web pages are limited in their ability to backtrack over material, which was previously seen using hyperlinked references in, for example, a document. After a user opens a web page, they often begin a process referred to in the art as drilling down. Text material on a displayed web page is linked to other pages, which can be accessed by pointing to linking words on the displayed page. The linking words are typically colored light blue in the displayed text and the color is changed, typically to a dark blue, when the word is selected in order to call up and display the web page to which it is hyperlinked. Often, this process is repeated with linking words on the newly displayed page used to refer to additional web pages. The user can return to the original page or any intermediate page by a process called backtracking. In browser programs in wide spread commercial use, the user backtracks by clicking on an icon on the display screen, which, each time, calls up the just previously displayed page.
Prior art browsers use a simple navigation strategy in backtracking. As previously explained, these browsers mark previously selected linking words with a color (e.g. dark blue) to distinguish them from linking words that were not previously selected. Although this system allows the user to distinguish those sites that have been previously viewed from those that have not been previously viewed, it does not tell the user the relative sequence in which the sites were viewed and/or visited.